A special request fulfilled for her 100th birthday: Tom Hallman

Most special requests to the senior center office are from residents who want to recapture past moments of their lives.

Time is precious, and they want to take that final trip to a special place. Or maybe they want to relive a beloved hobby they were forced to give up because their body betrayed them.

A couple of months ago, a different kind of appeal came in, one that people at Marquis Tualatin are still talking about.

Not because it was a grand adventure, but because its purity reminds us what matters as we confront the end. Our capacity to love and be loved.

All Eleanor Dew wanted was to see the future in the eyes of her five great-grandchildren, possibly for the last time.

She was about to turn 100 in mid-May and knew she was slowly losing a part of herself as she disappeared into the fog of dementia.

But from that fog came a request when her son, John, paid one of his regular visits to her at her long-term care center.

"I asked what she wanted to do for her birthday," her son said. "At her age, not a lot of things get my mother excited. She usually just shrugs or says 'whatever.' But this time she clearly enunciated what was deep in her mind."

She wanted to be surrounded by her great-grandchildren, including a 3-year-old great-granddaughter she had never met.

Making it happen, though, would be difficult. Four live throughout the Pacific Northwest and the fifth, a 3-year-old girl, is in California. They'd have to travel with parents, coordinate schedules, pay for what was really just a birthday party.

After John Dew left, his mother repeated the wish to her caregiver.

The caregiver told the Marquis Tualatin activity director, who contacted Vital Life -- the charitable arm of Marquis properties in Oregon, Washington, Nevada and California -- to see if it could help. The foundation sorts through various requests and selects those deemed worthy.

"We've been doing this for 10 years," said Ann Adrian, the foundation's executive director. "Most fall into an experience. One person wanted a last trip to Yosemite. Another wanted a last fly-fishing trip."

The foundation set up a 100th birthday party for Eleanor Dew, contacting her family and getting the five great-grandchildren and their parents to come surprise Dew. They paid for little Sophia Ali and her parents to fly in from California.

"My mother was in a room," John Dew said. "And around the corner came all the great-grandchildren. And then the youngest, the girl she had never seen, walked up to my mom who was in a wheelchair."

Eleanor Dew cried. John Dew cried.

"She clapped her hands and was thrilled," he said.

More than 20 family members, as well as center employees and caregivers, watched the reunion and stayed for the party.

"No one will ever forget it," Adrian said. "Everyone was overcome with emotion. Moments like this matter."

Susanna Ali, Sophia's mother, is an art professor at California State University, Long Beach. She said her grandmother has always been a role model, encouraging her as a child to follow her passion to create.

"My husband comes from a large family," Ali said. "They're local and we spend a lot of time with them. This was a meaningful opportunity for me to see my daughter with my grandmother and all the other relatives."

At the party, Ali said she felt as if she were watching something historical. At 100, this woman in the wheelchair had seen and lived through incredible changes in the world. The one constant in the old woman's life has been love.

"She is always positive," Ali said. "When I watched her with my daughter, I experienced emotions that I never anticipated."

In coming years, Ali plans to share with her daughter all the photographs taken that day.

"I will show Sophia her great-grandmother and tell her how she impacted my life. ... She's our only child," Ali said. "Like any parents, we want her to have as many connections as possible with her family."

One day, and no one can say when, Eleanor Dew will look at those children and see only strangers.